Saturday, May 31, 2008

Udder ruminations

"Cows have four tummies. I know that."

This comment from Genevieve came after we passed a cow statue on the way home from her pre-school. Reesa had asked about their yonies, but she really meant their udder, which Genevieve mispronounced as pudder, or something like that. And then the function of the udder in relation to milk was discussed, which of course led to tummies.

"Um hmm," I replied, preparing to build up to introducing the concept of ruminants, "cows have more than one stomach. I think they have five."

"Five, yeah, they have five tummies and that's were they keep their milk before it goes to their udders."

"Oh really? Where does their food go to after they've swallowed it?"

"Well, that goes there too."

Genevieve continued working out some numbers on the split between numbers of tummies for food and for milk, then decided that cow babies had to have their own tummies.

"There's three tummies for babies, and two for milk, and one for food. So that's, umm..." She started counting on her fingers...

"Yup. Five tummies!"

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